Democracy

David Brooks writes: Starting just after World War II,
America’s community/membership mind-set gave way to an individualistic/autonomy
mind-set. The idea was that individuals should be liberated to live as they
chose, so long as they didn’t interfere with the rights of others. By 1981, the
pollster Daniel
Yankelovich noticed the effects: “Throughout
most of this century Americans believed that self-denial made sense,
sacrificing made sense, obeying the rules made sense, subordinating oneself to
the institution made sense. But now doubts have set in, and Americans now
believe that the old giving/getting compact needlessly restricts the individual
while advancing the power of large institutions … who use the power to enhance
their own interests at the expense of the public.”

Arthur C. Brooks writes: There is a Polarization Industrial
Complex in American media today, which profits handsomely from the continuing
climate of bitterness. Not surprisingly, polarization in the House and Senate
is at its highest since the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s.

Engagement

Understanding
the role of local news and public engagement requires a systems-thinking lens
that takes into consideration not only the strength of individual news outlets,
but also the influence of the local economy, demographics, technological
infrastructure, and the policy environment — as well as the agency of citizens
to find, interpret, and share the information needed for civic involvement. The
Local News & Participation systems map is an open-source tool
that welcomes engagement by researchers, media companies, government and
nonprofit agencies, funders, and others. Through user involvement, we expect
this map to be made more accurate, complete, and practical as a vehicle for
improving how the public gains access to information and participates in
democracy. We invite you to explore the map and its elements in Kumu. As you
do, we hope you will tell us how to better describe and illuminate the dynamics
of the Local News & Participation system. Throughout 2016, we will hold
webinars and work sessions to involve new perspectives and strengthen this map.

In the experiment, a sample of 834 U.S. adults saw one of two
online news articles, both reporting on the struggles of the working poor. The
articles were nearly identical in length and reading level, had the same
headline, and contained the same photograph. The only difference between the
two was that one version focused on the working poor’s hardships, while the
other reported on the hardships and how some organizations were coming to the
aid of the working poor. In other words, one version was about a problem, while
the other also included information about solutions to the problem.

K-12 Education

ESSA largely puts states in the driver's seat when it comes
to how to rate schools and intervene in schools that aren't up to snuff. The
transparency requirements, however, can help advocates and policymakers ensure
that states, schools, and districts are still making progress with historically
overlooked groups of students. They were part of the law's bipartisan bargain,
and were important to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., one of the Democratic
architects of ESSA, among others.

The Institute of Education Sciences surveyed how districts in
five REL (regional education laboratory) Central states -- Kansas, Missouri,
Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota -- support new teachers.

We often imagine that research use involves district leaders
reviewing studies on the efficacy of different programs they are considering
adopting, weighing pros and cons, and making a selection. But the conceptual
use of research does not inform one specific decision directly. Instead, it
influences what district leaders prioritize and focus on as they do their work.
This, in turn, influences a variety of policy actions and problem solving
decisions across the school system. In this post, grantees Caitlin Farrell and
Cynthia Coburn outline four forms of conceptual use and illustrate its
potential impact on local education policy, writing, "Rather than influencing
a single decision, it shapes how people see the world, how they respond to
problems they encounter in their everyday work, and how they design and manage
solutions."

Higher
Education

The
Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN) has released an urgently needed
planning resource to help financial aid officers ensure that competency-based
education programs are designed and offered in ways that allow students to pay
tuition, fees, and living expenses using federal grants and loans. C-BEN
released the financial aid checklist and a related academic calendar tool in advance of its meeting April
20-22 in Santa Fe, N.M.

Missing from the debate is the fact that there are hundreds
of thousands of “middle skill” jobs in the United States that are — or soon
will be — going unfilled because of a dearth of qualified workers. Employers
complain that electricians, pipe fitters, advanced manufacturing machinists,
brick masons and radiology technicians are scarce. Katherine S. Newman, the
provost of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Hella Winston, a
senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at
Brandeis University, are the authors of “Reskilling America: Learning to Labor
in the 21st Century.”

In 2015, TICAS partnered with 22 California community
colleges to survey students on their expenses, their aid, and the choices they
make when their resources do not stretch far enough. About 12,000 students
responded from across the state, and more than 4,400 shared the personal
stories that form the backbone of this report.

The report highlights potential on-ramp occupations to
demonstrate to employers

that women working in these occupations may be good
candidates for skills training and employment in the target shortage
occupations. The pairing of well-paid target occupations with potential on-ramp
occupations also provides information for women considering their careers.

Health Care

This new report documents how states can improve health care
quality and lower costs, arguing that they're best positioned to enact reforms
in the near-term because of gridlock at the federal level. CAP broadly outlines
more than a dozen options for state governments to consider and examples of
states that have already pioneered some of them.

On the Fixes blog, Tina Rosenberg writes: There is
practically nothing that we shop for the same way we did 15 years ago. We
compare prices online, look at quality ratings and reviews, and read about the
experiences of others. We have endless information. Except in health care. Most
of us still buy it blind. We do as our doctor directs — and pray that our
portion of the bill will be reasonable. We have very little information about
quality and almost none about price. (In contrast to virtually every other
field, price and quality are not related in health care.) And we find out the
cost afterward. This is a problem for patients with high deductibles, like
deBronkart. It’s also a huge problem for the country.

Lawrence
R. Jacobs and Suzanne Mettler write: We
investigated how individuals may be experiencing and responding to health
reform implementation by analyzing three waves of a panel study we conducted in 2010, 2012, and 2014. While public opinion about the ACA remains split (45.6
percent unfavorable and 36.2 percent favorable), there have been several
detectable shifts. The share of respondents believing that reform had little or
no impact on access to health insurance or medical care diminished by 18
percentage points from 2010 to 2014, while those considering reform to have
some or a great impact increased by 19 percentage points. Among individuals who held unfavorable views toward the law in 2010, the percentage who supported repeal—while still high, at 72 percent—shrank by 9 percentage points from 2010 to 2014. We found that party affiliation and distrust in government were influential factors in explaining the continuing divide over the law.